The Arabist

The plot against America, the sequel

One of the consequences of the Republican / Tea Party victories in the US midterms may be that they will start taking the likes of these people more seriously:

WASHINGTON, DC: In a press briefing announcing the publication of the 370-page Team B II Report, Shariah: The Threat to America, four members of the Team will discuss the book's ground-breaking findings about the totalitarian politico-military-legal program mainstream Islam calls “shariah.” They will illuminate the role shariah is playing in both animating the violent attacks being mounted against this country and in insinuating– through stealthy, “pre-violent” means– this unconstitutional legal program into the United States.

After all, one of their principals is Frank Gaffney, whose Wikipedia entry for instance states:

In April 2009, Gaffney appeared on television and accused President Obama of using coded language to indicate that America would submit to Sharia law.[18]

In a June 9, 2009, Washington Times article Gaffney wrote: "With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls 'the Muslim world' ... there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself."[19]

Of course it must be pure coincidence that the above press release is carried by a Israel lobby organization and that Gaffney was was of the signatories of the Project for a New American Century program written for Netanyahu that became George W. Bush's foreign policy manifesto in the Middle East.

For a while now a part of the Israel lobby has been fanning the flames of Islamophobia — look for instance at the core activists against the Park51 project. I'm not sure what's scarier: the damage done to inter-faith relations in the US, or the reality that these nutcases have a proven track record of influencing government policy.